On Fire by Penny Flame

Penny Flame

The red plug can definitely go into the yellow hole. You don't need the manual.

7am and the Boss just left my casa. He has a busy busy day and has to do things that Bossmen do. Meetings, offices, pants, etc..... I have no idea about any of those things, (when we have meetings we always end up naked and I doubt his other meetings resemble ours in any shape, way or form) and am constantly excited by the differences in our lives. That may be a huge factor in what turns me on about him. He knows about all sorts of things that I don't, and I learn something new every time we hang out. I digress.

A couple nights ago I went up to San Francisco to hang out with Tristan Taormino, her partner Colten,

and a few other crazy cats for the release of Tristan's movie "chemistry 4" as well as her book "opening up: A guide to creating and sustaining open relationships." I hopped on the most comically oriented airline in the business (SWA) and after some funny voices announcing our evacuation plan (the first voice was that of a Mexican, the second a really ghetto ninja "just cuz the bag don't inflate, don't mean you ain't breathing air so chill out, remove your nails from your neighbors leg, and take a deep breathe), we land in Oakland, my town of towns.

Lexi Bardot picks me up, yes the sexi Lexi we all know and love,

and we head back to Berkeley where she needs to send some things from Fed Ex and I need some coffee for the long night ahead.

I hop on BART to get to the city, telling Lexi we'll meet up for the party at Good Vibrations. Once in the city, with the skyscrapers looming above me, and the streets smelling alive and well, I remember why every single time I come to San Francisco I leave my heart. Or perhaps I find it? Every time I'm here, I want to throw some flowers in my hair. But if you're going, to San Francisco, I don't know that you'll have the pleasure of meeting the lovely people I met there.

I go to the hotel for an interview with Violet Blue of the SF Chronicle, and a few other publications, and sitting in the room are two of my favorite performers, Adrianna Nicole and Sinnamon Love.

We speak briefly about the joys of being involved with Chemistry 4, and working for Ms. Taormino. If you don't know anything about the series, allow me to sum it up here real quick. 6 pornstars chosen to live in a house for 36 hours, and allowed to do whatever they want, whenever they want, with whoever they want. There was a little confessional booth set up in the back of the house where we would come to talk about what is going on, and who is going in.

The movie came out amazing. Absolutely amazing. I mean, I was there that weekend, and I know what a great time we had, but to be able to document it all, and then edit it with the same amount of gusto and passion that we lived it is quite a feat. So we were all thrilled when Tristan hands us some copies of the flick for our own personal collection.

After the interview we head down to Good Vibrations, an adult toy and book store located directly across an SFPD station. (good thing I was behaving myself in the name of Vivid...). We talk to people in the store, outside of the store, some familiar faces show up, including one cat that grew up down the street from me. Literally down the street, a couple houses, when I was about 9. Haven't seen him since my parents divorced, at 13. Wild. And here he is. Just chilling.

At one point, I am trying to hold onto a book and a wine glass, and the book starts to fall from my hand and I toss the wine glass in the air and try to save the book. I'm obviously not an alcoholic. Luckily the guy who owns the book lives right around the corner so he went home, got a new wineless book for me to sign and then we carried on our way from GV to Foreign Cinema, a fantastic restaurant that plays foreign films from an old movie reel on the wall of the our door area for all the diners to watch. Before they seat us we relax in the bar, grab a drink and talk amongst ourselves.

When I make this next statement, you may laugh. Call me a liar. But it is 100% truth.

I have a very hard time opening up to people. I mean, I am selectively open about my life. I don't talk much about my family with porn people, and porn people don't really ask. It may be due to the fact that we are all once removed from ourselves and our "real lives" due to the pseudonyms induced fašade. I engage in conversation with a woman named Susie Bright, over a vodka tonic, and her ears are so open that I find myself spilling my fucking guts right there on the bar floor. I tell her about my mom. My sister. My little brother who is about to graduate high school. The hostess offers to seat us in the middle of our conversation (well, it was a bit of a one sided conversation, as I'm afraid I may have talked her ear off entirely), and Susie tells me that she has bookmarked our conversation and we will return to it once seated. Now this is not unusual practice.

Actually returning to the conversation in the exact place where we left off is unusual, and you can imagine my surprise when I sat down next to Susie, well in between her and her partner John, and she picked up right where we had left off. She even repeated some of the story I had been telling her to remind me of our exact moment, and momentum. And then she proceeded to share things from her life to which I can relate, and before I knew it, my admiration and respect for this woman had blossomed into a beautiful thousand petaled lotus. And my heart felt light for having shared the parts of my life that I have been holding inside.

Now if you have never heard of Susie Bright, it is quite possible that you have been living under that rock everybody talks about. She is one of the first "sex positive" speakers and writers of our time, has given innumerable lectures on the subject, and co-founded and edited one of the first womens sex magazines "On Our Backs." She is an amazing woman, and even with all her credits and experience, one could never imagine the charisma and energy surrounding her. It is something that must be experienced first hand. And I can't even go into how thankful I am to have shared in her experience, because this is a blog, not a book.

Anyway, hanging with these awesome women, these incredibly forward thinking, strong and sex positive women reminded me of my own position in life to do good. To help women of the world become sex positive, and sexually open. And what it means to embrace our inner sexual being, and allow that natural instinct to be our entire being.

So I started reading Tristan's book "A guide to opening up", and low and behold, she starts describing my ideal relationship. She starts laying out questions that I should be asking myself as someone who is up for open relationships, and guiltless sexual gratification. I enjoy multiple partners. I embrace nonmonogamy in the terms she defines it because she has taken away the social norm of the nuclear family. She has made it okay to desire more than one person at a time and even to love more than one person at a time, as we naturally do. And one of the major tools that she states used in an open relationship is the art of honesty laced with compassion. And suddenly, it all starts making sense. I don't think I am wired to love one person for the rest of all eternity. I want to build relationships with multiple people that are long lasting, and the only way for me to do that is to embrace compassionate honesty, and practice it in every relationship I have. I care deeply for Bossman, and I know he cares for me, but there will always be desires in him that I may not be able to fulfill. And thank god because it is so much responsibility having to meet and fill every expectation and desire of a partner. So I will bring him (and myself, yes I desire pussy and he certainly can't give that to me....) women to play with to keep things spicy. I even enjoy the thought of him inside another woman, and what really excites me is the thought of him telling me about it afterwards, regardless of whether I was there to witness it or not. What excites me is the openness with which we can talk about our wants and desires. Our basic human needs.

I have a lot of thinking to do. For 25 years I have been telling myself that there is something wrong. There is something abnormal about the fact while I may be able to devote myself mentally to one person, I will always want the sexual gratification and enjoyment of many people. I have been trying to live up to someones standards that are not my own. I've always thought that I am just wired wrong.